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Since you have a SAR resource at hand, ask them for a Trip Plan Form... there are generic ones from PEP and other groups have 'customized' them for local use... I know that having one can greatly simplify the process of information gathering... lots of people fail to consider that details change almost daily, so the need to do a fresh one is very important... It also prevents forgetting to mention something that might prove critical in the event it gets used. If for some reason you can't get one locally, I'll be watching or else use the profile. It is a very good idea for any cacher (or anyone else) into remote areas, or even into local bush to file a form with a reliable friend and then check back in with them on your return. It doesn't have to be a burden. It can be a lifesaver. Doug

Hi There... I agree with that... I AM a newbie cacher, and for the moment I'll fight down the urge to place caches everywhere I go... but that does not mean that I a not considering the possibilities in the mean time. New to caching also does not carry a meaning of unknowledgable, or unskilled etc. Interpreting a GPS isn't all that new, more so for map and compass work, other forms of electronic position finding also. Many people have used them and more to place themselves on the surface of the earth for centuries... So I think that it's a very individual thing. I know a few 'experienced' cachers who can find a waypoint, but really don't have a clue how to navigate in the wild... and I have met many who can run rings around me in the bush, but not very many... Right now I'm happy to play around and find what caches I can with help from my 'good half' Lynne. I'm really hoping to find a few that are in the 'real' boonies around here, which is saying a lot, since Elkford is the 'wilderness capitol of BC'. I'd hate for one of those to be out of place, though, but I go for the experience of the 'hunt' not always for the 'find'... and yes I've had DNF's this year, but I've stuck with it and eventually get the find. I use a early 90's Garmin 45xl 4 channel... and I've never had serious navigation problems that can't be worked around... though it really hates trees and canyons... I have my techniques developing and inventing work arounds based on classical methods.. Avalanche beacon search grids can work... for example. Anyway... got to run... BTW typos can cause problems finding caches also... one doesn't always get what you "indented" to type eh! But one can always learn to read between the lines as well. Doug

Hi There, I've been watching this for a while, even pondered coming over, but it looks like a no go... I'm very short of spare CASH, and now even more short of time since it looks as if like I'm sitting on GZ for this years SAREX event... which means that one way or another I'm going to be tied up prepping the event or prepping to participate, even though it is not this weekend. Anyway... I noted your comments on radios, but until your reference to VHF licences you haven't been very specific as to what your intentions are to USE. Lots of cachers are Amateur Radio Operators as well, then there are Commercial radio licences, GRS (C.B. ) radios (AM and SSB), FRS and GMRS (UHF FM)which are unlicenced (in Canada). Non are interchangeable, even though some may be capable of the others frequencies in a few cases... licence restrictions prevent crossover, legally but it does happen in real emergencies. The big question is where are you aiming? GMRS/FRS is likely the most affordable route, followed by commercial rentals, others may use existing licenced frequencies for logging roads (forestry commercial). Of course you can use several different systems at the same time, without crossing directly. CB tends to be better in hilly terrain than a lot of more expensive systems, less line of sight and it's inexpensive, plus a lot of people have them already. Just a question... Doug

AMEN...They also used to use an interesting technique when people complained about trains blocking roads for periods of time... major and minor, urban and rural included... if there were complaints from road users about blocked crossings, they started negotiations by announcing they would be glad to remove the roadway from their track right of way... this usually mitigated a lot of complaints and a better compromise was negotiated... I'm not sure of the states, but most right of ways here were covered by the Railway Act and were Federal land grants... Notice that they are entitled to National Police status for National Railways like CN, CP... and the laws are Federal. Speaking about rights of way... again I'm not sure about the States, especially TX, but that 15 foot from tracks sounds awfully close... I'd suggest checking the fenceline to see if that is encroaching... local government is as guilty of that as well as normal people... It may be that the rail line is very low usage and something was worked out... Up here, if the rails are still there, the line is considered 'active' if not used from time to time... better safe than sorry. Doug

Actually, it is an International Standard for Radio Communications of which the US is a signatory... As for what is used in informal person to person communications by other formats, what ever works is fine. When it's in a number I call it a decimal (yes, point) so I'm easy there... dot is descriptive... I only use that for addressing as in dot Com... As for not so 'trivia' for navigators, did you know that the degree/minute/second symbols are Roman 0 I II characters in superscript. As you said, they refer to 'steps' whole of a circle, the first subdivisions (minuta prima), and further divisions of those (minuta secunda). The usage is similar to exponent designators. Oh yes... minuta means a little piece. I always find someone who manages to treats the decimal part of minutes as seconds and vice versa and who is usually lost. Doug

I wouldn't go that far. There are a lot of puzzle fans around here that enjoy working on puzzles as a team. For that matter, there are puzzle fans that cache as a family, and who have a single account for the entire family. It seems unrealistic to expect each of those family members to solve puzzles on their own. trainlove can speak for himself, but I don't read anything there that excludes team efforts, as long as the effort is by the team itself. I've been following this thread since it popped up and think that there are many ill feelings caused by the medium itself... text messages can appear to be what they are not... hostile or even complimentary. Fact is, the only 'hostile' comment was the last bit from fire5er about leaving... for my part that would be sad... considering that the name of and type of code in question didn't enter in to working a solution to it... everything needed is on the cache page in plain sight... it is only the first step of a multi. Hope he will stick around. Doug

'Them that hides, can find, them that finds, can hide' - Ben Gunn, Treasure Island by RLStevenson

Good sleuthing! I will remember to check the TB's owner's cache finds before jumping to assumptions. The TB's owner was caching here in FL and found the cache 8 days before I did. He logged that he took 2 bugs and dropped 2 bugs. One of them he logged into the cache. The other, his own replacement bug, he did not log into the cache. Sadly, I did not find a long lost bug. Hi Again... thanks, but it wasn't to hard yet... You are correct that a little 'sleuthing' can soothe the nerves though... Up here it's winter, and a little puzzle now and then means something cache related to do... I'm fairly new to caching, but have interest and a skill set that is growing... plus being nosey. I have to go back to the Wyoming site to reexamine that, but my first impression was that a student has picked up the original without doing more than leaving a note... but I seem to recall it in his inventory... again I have to check more... however his last visit to GC.com was in 2006... perhaps he is busy with school or something... the original may have been placed somewhere without 'dropping'... quite a few caches up this way can sit for months without a visitor... and they don't always log things or even pay attention to TBs as TBs. Another thing is that not everyone who caches uses GC.com some don't use any organization at all. I've been looking for a local (perhaps a school age) who picked up a TB without logging it... but I'm hopeful I will find some evidence as to who it is... eventually they may come here and log or at least register, or I may find an in cache log that gives them an ID beyond the caching name... It's just the territory... no blame, just information... and few ulcers. Nice to chat.. Doug

The "Add Reply" button way down at the bottom yes... have you tried the "quote" and "reply" buttons over HERE on the lower right of the message form...? Doug

I would say "North 41 degrees, 35 point Five One Seven minutes. West 88 degrees, 11 point Four Five Three minutes." I can live with that 'point', but most would say 'decimal' for clarity especially on radio. Point also has other meanings in some forms of navigation, as in marine usage... ie. 3 points on the port bow or something... Doug

Hi There. 2nd things first... it's likely that it was dropped on Nov 12 from the cache log... but not logged as dropped... two tb's dropped by the owner but not named.. or logged there. Just a possible. I see the Wyoming was logged as what looks like a 'discover' but logged as taken to BC. No activity on the cacher since then... I am going to have a look at the local clubs sites... they may not be active here, but might be somewhere. Glad to see someone else seems to care. Doug

I agree... not sure that it's the same model, there seem to be several... but when I was looking for a 'inexpensive' first digital, I chose to get a Kodak Easy Share v803 8.0 mp. For what it is, it takes much better pictures than I ever expected... Even now that I've learned to turn down the resolution quite a bit, I still get good results, most of the time... Hey! I'm human and still on a learning curve, all uphill. I use it for scenery shots, and have tried it for 'evidence' shots for SAR (unofficially, but just in case). Even when I strip the shots down for use on GC.com on the logs they reproduce faithfully (I again thank BlueDeuce for introducing me to Irfan software, it works great). I also have my older 35mm Minolta and some video... which while dated produce good results. The camcorder came out of a garbage can and 'did not work', I though the camera might still even if the recorder didn't function... a good cleaning and a recycle job on the battery and I've had 7 years of decent (but analog) video... As for surviving the wilds... the v830 fits right into a Pelican 1010 box. Granted it is a rechargeable battery pack in this case, but I've yet to run out of charge in normal shift. Nothing but practice will help with my composition and shot execution though... although I'm tolerably skilled at getting akward shots... just not always 'high' art levels. Doug

Hi There... thanks for that reference... I also picked up either the same or similar as a quote from Eartha re another recent thread... I suspected that some characters had been omitted OR dealt with by some other means such as position in the series... something like the Vehicle Identification Numbers... certain characters are ok in some places but not others... also dependent on the brand... Of course you raised another question... are all the characters Ascii or one of the international fonts... Doug

Darn... anyway I did some more poking... I missed that picture on the TB page but that was the place OK. I suspect that there is a NEW bear or re release, but the inactive bit sounds like new... The original appears to have been last placed at GC14M3V on 03 AUG 07 an event. There is nothing to say the bear placed at Blue Hawk Mine was anything other than a bear on re read. My comment about the coin was apparently fixed way back then and it has been circulating and tracked. I'll just watch this now. Doug

If that was directed to me... I have never seen the one that was found... I was just practicing my tracking skills... and just followed the chain of evidence... It seemed to link up... If things changed, it was one of the finders... of course we could point at Vinny and Sue but I'm not like that... BTW the alleged owner of Clive was having problems with a GC same day... someone elses I think... might be related or just (finger) trouble. I'll have to look and see what that coin was when I have time. As for me I like puzzles and mysteries, and the snow is starting to accumulate up here and my vehicle is not on the road till next week (I hope) so I'm not doing much caching for real, although some are out there locally on nice days. Now we wait for the originator to check in... or did you take care of that... would like to know results. Especially if it is NOT Clive the Bear... Doug

I was bored today... tracked history of bear... try Clive the Bear location unknown... was placed by owner summerland at GC134YH Blue Hawk Mine June 1 2007... Bimmergirl from Hiking Chaos from the mine. Doug

I might have some other suspicions... but perhaps a more modern 'replica' of the bridge would be more practical... similar appearance (even antiqued), modern dimensions for clearance, support etc. By all means wait til the cloud clears and then go historical site cache... Doug

Looks like they got your message... the FT TB is logged in their inventory and on the cache page as of right now... 3 Oct [i did see one listing that said '07 though... the TB log says 08.] [edit. my error that was the placement of the cache ] Doug

I didn't take any offense by it... in fact I probably could have typed it a bit clearer. Nice to meet someone who understands the 'real' science of smoke and its place in electronics. That said, I've released it from and then restored function to many devices... and some NOT! Something about having many salvaged electrolytic caps and good power supplies in my youth (and later)... sigh! I certainly am not impressed with the amount of info provided in the 500 manual (pdf)... LI battery, no voltage, aH info etc... Nothing on charger other than price and picture... I see the cable is useable several ways... but I was concerned when I found the GPSr end could be reversed... and looks like contact only for the connection. EScout said that there is some sort of spring loading to enhance contact and that it could be cleaned up... I agree that it was a continuity problem of some sort... I still would like to know if he got his batteries charged / checked and if the unit works with them, or even thru the adapter... As for that 12V car source, that is the description... obviously for the source not the output, but I bet the error has been made by DIY enthusiasts who don't read everything... I've got to run... checking out some of the threads by people selecting flashlights instead of "darksuckers". Doug

I didn't take any offense by it... in fact I probably could have typed it a bit clearer. Nice to meet someone who understands the 'real' science of smoke and its place in electronics. That said, I've released it from and then restored function to many devices... and some NOT! Something about having many salvaged electrolytic caps and good power supplies in my youth (and later)... sigh! I certainly am not impressed with the amount of info provided in the 500 manual (pdf)... LI battery, no voltage, aH info etc... Nothing on charger other than price and picture... I see the cable is useable several ways... but I was concerned when I found the GPSr end could be reversed... and looks like contact only for the connection. EScout said that there is some sort of spring loading to enhance contact and that it could be cleaned up... I agree that it was a continuity problem of some sort... I still would like to know if he got his batteries charged / checked and if the unit works with them, or even thru the adapter... As for that 12V car source, that is the description... obviously for the source not the output, but I bet the error has been made by DIY enthusiasts who don't read everything... I've got to run... checking out some of the threads by people selecting flashlights instead of "darksuckers". Doug

Assuming that to be aimed at my 'advice'... I wouldn't and hope didn't either... I thought I was clear about reading the manual, and the info on the charger unit... I did not see anything on the subject in the PDF for that unit but did see a 12 v adaptor... and freely admit that it could be a different output voltage... in fact I did notice the USB charge bit (including the fact that it has to be set on in the software)... so I should have assumed a lower voltage unit... My Garmin will take up to 34 volts or so direct, but I wouldn't do that either without dropping a bit. I think Escout has a bit more from my read, but it was essentially what I was going for... follow the electricity to where it dissappears and fix or have it fixed. We have yet to hear from the originator again... Doug

Hi again.... I was reading through the 500 manual (pdf) and did not get much more than that it is a Lithium Ion rechargeable pac... and that there is a 12 VDC adaptor for car use.... so I'm guessing that the AC cube puts out nominal 12 V or 13.8 if like most things that can be car powered. I'm also guessing that the GPSr contains the charger circuit internally. It's obvious that there is automatic switching from internal battery to external power... Again I would ask if the unit works with the battery installed (charge or not) and the AC plugged in... I also did some reading on another site... came across a comment about the data function not working for up or down load files... THEY suggested that the cable could be connected inverted... I was assuming that you know that the cable should run DOWN along the body of the unit, NOT off the top... One of those things I didn't know about your unit... I could see that that might have an effect on charging if ignored... I don't think that an unkeyed connector would have been first or best choice in design dept. Not a whole lot more I can think of... One question for you since I don't have one to look at... does that AC cube have a connector on it for direct charging without the GPSr.... the pic shows what might be a detachable cover... or maybe it's just the housing join line... I can't tell from the pic... the description makes it sound like a spare can be kept charged with just the adapter... probably not since the transformer would take up most of the space... Just asking... Doug

I have an old style carbide lantern (the kind my grandfather coon hunted with in the old days) and I could not locate carbide for it. The only source I heard that still sold it was Lehman's Country Store. Called them and they said that they no longer carried it because of government red tape. Where do you get carbide for your Petzl? Hi There... I would suggest trying a CAVING supply store... Should be some in T.A.G. country or close by. That's some of the best CAVING country I've seen... Certainly there are some online... But I agree that post 9/11 rules must be cutting into sales... Of course the weirdest answer I've ever got re buying Calcium Carbide was when I called up the Head Office of Union CARBIDE in Canada and asked where I could get some... THEY didn't even know what it was!... at first... If you can't find a caving supply, try the local welding supply distributor... there are still some places that use it to generate acetylene for gas torches... Watch the size (mesh) of the pieces... for headlamps, it has to be smaller than for larger generators like Petzl Belt type or the commercial welding rigs which are very large. If you do get it running, don't forget to dispose of the waste product safely... don't just dump it please... Try getting someone who knows the lamps to help you... overfilling etc can ruin a good lamp easily, and there are some tricks to getting the things to run... simple but neccessary, like seals, clean orfices, flints, damage control... But they are cool. Try to keep warm with a flashlight! ON Topic... I like the Mini Mag AA 3watt LED... or cheap headlights... for around the car... Pelican Heads up for SAR purposes. Doug VE7RXC inactive caver

Hi There... I don't know the GPSr in question or the battery type... however... thats never stopped me before. You say that there is voltage going into the unit... or is that voltage coming out of the cable end from the ac adapter... I'm assuming you are used to charging in the past, so the first question is is that voltage out of the adapter/cable the correct type (AC/DC) and at what level. Check your docs to see if the voltage into the unit should be (usually DC) some cubes lose their rectification and put out something else other than pure DC... They also can put out less or more than desired voltage range... it's normal for 'charger' adapters to put out a bit high when unloaded. Assuming that the supply is on spec. and that the batteries are good (do you know someone with a unit that can charge them?) The next thing I'd check would be that there is voltage on the unit battery terminals when the power is connected but the battery is removed... FIRST check and see if that is OK with your DOCS... some things don't like that. IF its OK then measure across the terminals and see if anything is getting to them... normally more than the nominal voltage of the battery... but not by much. If there is nothing there, you might have a bad or broken connection inside... or a problem with the electronics... That is going to take a tech of some sort... I might go at it myself if it was mine, but I don't know your skills and likely is a job for a service shop... In the mean time... try getting someone to charge them for you, that will check the batteries, See if you can use 'normal' batteries in place of the rechargeable in the mean time... In fact see if what you have are rechargeable FIRST... I said I don't know what you have! Read the manual, if the charging unit is built into the unit and only powered by the AC adapter, there may be a fuse or other protection... Try to follow the power to where it vanishes. Have you tried a fresh charged battery in the GPSr to see if it works... that might confirm a broken connection. How many terminals are IN the unit / on Battery... some use one pair for charging and another for normal use.. I'll see IF I can get anything from the Magellan site... more for my interest... Hope some of this helps locate a simple cause.. Doug VE7RXC

Hi There to everyone... One thing to consider with the above and other declination calculators is that they provide (properly) the difference between Magnetic North and True North... For those using UTM grid coordinates, remember to factor in the convergence angle, the difference between True North and Grid North. This is seldom a great difference, but can effect precision measurements... especially the diffence between E and W readings... Around southern BC it's about 0.75 degrees per degree away from the UTM zone centre meridian... (a UTM zone is 6 degrees wide, so the max is three E or W for a max of 2.25 at the edges). On the original question, I concur... as for following GPS bearing instructions... I have an older GPSr which does not have a built in compass... so it's the SUUNTO for me. However, I only recently remembered to check WHAT the GPSr was telling me... It was set to TRUE north, which was my normal navigation setting. I soon realized that I could set it to MAGNETIC, and Set the Declination to what I wanted resulting in either True or Grid, just like the compass... Triangulation with a compass is much easier and more accurate... Also in SAR up here. Doug VE7RXC